The mitochondrial inner surface membrane and its connections.
Using conservative methods to isolate heart muscle mitochondria fractions and to break open the mitochondria resulted in the release of large fragments of the inner surface membrane. After negative staining these fragments were characterized structurally by the presence of particles with a uniform size and a mean diameter of 110 A, distributed uniformly in the membrane with the exception of 400 A wide circumscribed areas within which these particles were missing and instead larger particles were closely associated. These areas are the sites at which the stalklike connections extending from the cristae are inserted at the inner surface membrane, whereby the cristae are connected to the proteinaceous pathways that according to Sjöstrand and Candipan (1985) pass through the two surface membranes establishing a connection between the cristae and the cytosol.
Sjöstrand
F S
FS
Department of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles.
D000818:Animals; D002458:Cell Fractionation / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D007425:Intracellular Membranes / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D008854:Microscopy, Electron / Q000379:methods; D008929:Mitochondria, Heart / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D009206:Myocardium / Q000166:cytology / Q000648:ultrastructure